.
One my way home yesterday, I took a cab. The cab driver seemed excited. As soon as I settled in, he began.
Cabbie: Did you watch the inauguration?!
Me: No I didn't, but I plan to.
Cabbie: Psshh! (a sign that it was great). Obama knows how to talk! It was because of this that he won. The other man, what was his name?
Me: McCain?
Cabbie: Yes! He was like a machine!
(I then explained to him about how he got his war wounds which is maybe why he seemed like such a "machine")
Cabbie: Its not just Obama who won! It was all the blacks, the immigrants, the...
Me: Yeah! a black president!
Cabbie: Black is good. It is beautiful! HE will bring change.
Me: And now Hilary Clinton is Secretary of State
Cabbie: Well, he had to do something to please the white people!
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
BF -Please Take Care of Your Split Ends! (Good Roots, Bad Endings)
.
Hey all,
Its getting harder to post with a li'l one that just wants to crawl everywhere.
Anyway, BF, we need to take care of our split ends. We've got great roots. Great hair. Great beginnings, great foundations and basis, but why is the endings so drabby? Look at our communities, the jail system is a revolving door in many black communities. BW and children are waking up to the menace that BM can become -and many have. Shoot! Even BM are waking up to the menace other BM have become! Comedians are crass and debasing. The ends are ....bad! We need to cut that part off! But I am sure that there is another alternative, another "end" that CAN BE. We need to cut off this bad end and make only one end result of our roots....the gooood ending!
I'd love to expound on this but no time. Grrrrrrrrrr!!!!
One other thing: the focal point must be Joy. That is our meter. If it doesn't bring Joy at the very least, at the end, forget it.
I want and wish for Joy joy joy to radiate on BF faces. I want to see that brilliance. That mind working, that smile. Okay, I'm somewhere else. lol.
Hey all,
Its getting harder to post with a li'l one that just wants to crawl everywhere.
Anyway, BF, we need to take care of our split ends. We've got great roots. Great hair. Great beginnings, great foundations and basis, but why is the endings so drabby? Look at our communities, the jail system is a revolving door in many black communities. BW and children are waking up to the menace that BM can become -and many have. Shoot! Even BM are waking up to the menace other BM have become! Comedians are crass and debasing. The ends are ....bad! We need to cut that part off! But I am sure that there is another alternative, another "end" that CAN BE. We need to cut off this bad end and make only one end result of our roots....the gooood ending!
I'd love to expound on this but no time. Grrrrrrrrrr!!!!
One other thing: the focal point must be Joy. That is our meter. If it doesn't bring Joy at the very least, at the end, forget it.
I want and wish for Joy joy joy to radiate on BF faces. I want to see that brilliance. That mind working, that smile. Okay, I'm somewhere else. lol.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
NaHiY Notes
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DOMAIN: Basketball
SPLENDOR: A player (Michael Jordan) introduces new concepts like "air time" walk on "air" as well as promotes slam dunking, etc.
NEW BIRTH / YESOD: A new way and new level of playing basketball
DOMAIN: Music
SPLENDOR: Young guys who had no access to musical instruments turn to their mouths and introduced "beat box" to the world.
NEW BIRTH / YESOD: Acappela will never be the same
DOMAIN: Christian church
SPLENDOR: Many brought a whole new level of spirituality and music
NEW BIRTH / YESOD: The Black church
DOMAIN: Peanut
SPLENDOR: George Washington Carver found various ways to make use of the peanut
NEW BIRTH / YESOD: Peanut butter!
Joseph the Righteous was symbolic of YESOD trait. He excelled in this when he resisted the temptations of Potiphar's wife. Then, his sexuality remained pure, his imagination clear, his ability to receive from God opened and he could interpret dreams, etc. He went from malchut (kingship, lowliness) to keter (the highest level) when he became viceroy and distributed food to all who needed.
I think the best example for AAs is Joseph the Righteous.
DOMAIN: Music
SPLENDOR: At a crossroad between African music and European music, AAs found a pount of intersection.
NEW BIRTH / YESOD: Jazz
DOMAIN: Dancing
SPLENDOR: Gang's answer to .....ballet?
NEW BIRTH / YESOD: Breakdancing
There's more...Ragtime Music, Alot of those memorable 60's music, a slew of inventors in science. . Plus I did not delve into African and Caribbean. Not to mention ancient history (Phoenician?). Again, this is not to say that others can not do the same, but I do wonder if this is BF's propensity.
Even during the horrid slavery times, spiritual music was being created. Its like a train that won't stop.
The problem is when BF are met with evil. When the evil is outside of themselves, it come in the form of fear. Lynch mobs would accuse BF of raping "their women", BM would get strung from a tree but what part got cut off? Part of the reproductive organ. When opposers wanted to trap the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., it was through ilicit relations. The mandigo myth. Always centered around "there".
When BF meets evil from within, we have lots of women who, stifled in their creativity, develop uterine fibroids,
(note: I wish she would have quoted the source of her studies)
Or a "mating" occurs with the wrong element and there are OOW (out of wedlock) children, strange or wrong ideas (BET?), gangs of rapists hounding neighborhoods, countries.
How to regain sexual purity? Creativity?
I don't have a physical working solution. I don't suppose I can encourage people to throw away their television. But being mindful of what goes into our "Imagination box" will tell us what will come out.
On a spiritual note, in the Psalms, there are different types. Some begin with "A shigayon..." "A Maskil..." etc. Each Psalm type has a powerful healing element, according to Rabbi Nachman of Breslev. He took ten most potent ones and called it a general remedy.
Psalms: 16, 32, 41, 42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137, and 150
(you can more about it from Wiki. I am so totally surprised to find it on wikipedia! Its called Tikkun haklali))
DOMAIN: Basketball
SPLENDOR: A player (Michael Jordan) introduces new concepts like "air time" walk on "air" as well as promotes slam dunking, etc.
NEW BIRTH / YESOD: A new way and new level of playing basketball
DOMAIN: Music
SPLENDOR: Young guys who had no access to musical instruments turn to their mouths and introduced "beat box" to the world.
NEW BIRTH / YESOD: Acappela will never be the same
DOMAIN: Christian church
SPLENDOR: Many brought a whole new level of spirituality and music
NEW BIRTH / YESOD: The Black church
DOMAIN: Peanut
SPLENDOR: George Washington Carver found various ways to make use of the peanut
NEW BIRTH / YESOD: Peanut butter!
Joseph the Righteous was symbolic of YESOD trait. He excelled in this when he resisted the temptations of Potiphar's wife. Then, his sexuality remained pure, his imagination clear, his ability to receive from God opened and he could interpret dreams, etc. He went from malchut (kingship, lowliness) to keter (the highest level) when he became viceroy and distributed food to all who needed.
I think the best example for AAs is Joseph the Righteous.
DOMAIN: Music
SPLENDOR: At a crossroad between African music and European music, AAs found a pount of intersection.
NEW BIRTH / YESOD: Jazz
DOMAIN: Dancing
SPLENDOR: Gang's answer to .....ballet?
NEW BIRTH / YESOD: Breakdancing
There's more...Ragtime Music, Alot of those memorable 60's music, a slew of inventors in science. . Plus I did not delve into African and Caribbean. Not to mention ancient history (Phoenician?). Again, this is not to say that others can not do the same, but I do wonder if this is BF's propensity.
Even during the horrid slavery times, spiritual music was being created. Its like a train that won't stop.
The problem is when BF are met with evil. When the evil is outside of themselves, it come in the form of fear. Lynch mobs would accuse BF of raping "their women", BM would get strung from a tree but what part got cut off? Part of the reproductive organ. When opposers wanted to trap the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., it was through ilicit relations. The mandigo myth. Always centered around "there".
When BF meets evil from within, we have lots of women who, stifled in their creativity, develop uterine fibroids,
"It is estimated that 20 to 50 percent of all women may have fibroids, which are benign tumors of the uterus. They may grow on or within the uterine wall or in the uterine cavity. Christiane Northrup, MD (Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom) and ... Full DescriptionCaroline Myss, PhD, feel that fibroid tumors represent a woman's unborn or suppressed "creativity" that accumulates through life and relationships."source(emphasis mine)
(note: I wish she would have quoted the source of her studies)
Or a "mating" occurs with the wrong element and there are OOW (out of wedlock) children, strange or wrong ideas (BET?), gangs of rapists hounding neighborhoods, countries.
How to regain sexual purity? Creativity?
I don't have a physical working solution. I don't suppose I can encourage people to throw away their television. But being mindful of what goes into our "Imagination box" will tell us what will come out.
On a spiritual note, in the Psalms, there are different types. Some begin with "A shigayon..." "A Maskil..." etc. Each Psalm type has a powerful healing element, according to Rabbi Nachman of Breslev. He took ten most potent ones and called it a general remedy.
Psalms: 16, 32, 41, 42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137, and 150
(you can more about it from Wiki. I am so totally surprised to find it on wikipedia! Its called Tikkun haklali))
The Mixed Multitudes and the Small Multitudes: Today's Shepherds
.
We all know about the mixed multitudes. They were the group that went with Moses and the rest of the freed Hebrew slaves out to the desert. Throughout the way, they continued to urge the people to stop following Moses. Don't we remember how nice it was for us in Egypt, they would say; Moses is not coming back, let's make a golden calf, they urged; etc.
Every society, I believe has their concept of the "mixed multitudes". In particular, in the black community we have those who encourage people to go astray from whatever beneficial social norms the community holds. For example, the 'no snitching rule'. Whoever came up with that one HAD to be from the "mixed multitudes". "Video vixens" another mixed multitude concept; "why should women marry?" mixed multitude.
It is pretty easy to spot their "teachings" because if you sit down, alone with yourself, and really meditate on what they say, you will find that things have been well for community x for a long while --without that rule. Things will start to go down for oneself when their idea gets implemented. Just envision life with their ideas full blown, in the long run.
But there is another concept that I believe every society has to deal with as well. Some Jewish mystical sources talk about another group called The Small Multitudes. These are the people who push you to do more. Exaggeratedly more. You want to do good deeds, why stop there, push and do more and yet more still! In the Jewish world, they can make you feel small for not keeping every extra stringency possible.
I believe the "small multitude" concept is also in every society. For example, in the AA community, many people are rising from the dust. They are finding their sense of empowerment, their voice, (their vote, lol) and are soaring to new heights.
Enter the "small multitudes". Why stop at that high paying job? buy businesses and expand and expand some more! Why settle for that small fry husband? Give him the boot! Be for yourself! Who said motherhood was important?! We've been had all these years! Let's fling the responsibilities of childrearing in the wind! Let another group deal with that!
At first glance, its hard to see the bad from the small multitude. They take good things and push it to beyond good. Before you know it you are out of the bracket of what's beneficial to you.
So how to distinguish who from who? Who's the mixed multitude? Who's the small multitude? Where are our leaders to guide us?
I believe that we basically have no leaders now. We are all orphans. I believe we have got to use our minds as we've never used it before; crack open books; do research and DEFINITELY not depend on anyone alive today to run our lives or to lead us anywhere. There is no time to sleep.
A wise man learns from everyone. So does a wise woman. I say learn, but keep vigil.
We all know about the mixed multitudes. They were the group that went with Moses and the rest of the freed Hebrew slaves out to the desert. Throughout the way, they continued to urge the people to stop following Moses. Don't we remember how nice it was for us in Egypt, they would say; Moses is not coming back, let's make a golden calf, they urged; etc.
Every society, I believe has their concept of the "mixed multitudes". In particular, in the black community we have those who encourage people to go astray from whatever beneficial social norms the community holds. For example, the 'no snitching rule'. Whoever came up with that one HAD to be from the "mixed multitudes". "Video vixens" another mixed multitude concept; "why should women marry?" mixed multitude.
It is pretty easy to spot their "teachings" because if you sit down, alone with yourself, and really meditate on what they say, you will find that things have been well for community x for a long while --without that rule. Things will start to go down for oneself when their idea gets implemented. Just envision life with their ideas full blown, in the long run.
But there is another concept that I believe every society has to deal with as well. Some Jewish mystical sources talk about another group called The Small Multitudes. These are the people who push you to do more. Exaggeratedly more. You want to do good deeds, why stop there, push and do more and yet more still! In the Jewish world, they can make you feel small for not keeping every extra stringency possible.
I believe the "small multitude" concept is also in every society. For example, in the AA community, many people are rising from the dust. They are finding their sense of empowerment, their voice, (their vote, lol) and are soaring to new heights.
Enter the "small multitudes". Why stop at that high paying job? buy businesses and expand and expand some more! Why settle for that small fry husband? Give him the boot! Be for yourself! Who said motherhood was important?! We've been had all these years! Let's fling the responsibilities of childrearing in the wind! Let another group deal with that!
At first glance, its hard to see the bad from the small multitude. They take good things and push it to beyond good. Before you know it you are out of the bracket of what's beneficial to you.
So how to distinguish who from who? Who's the mixed multitude? Who's the small multitude? Where are our leaders to guide us?
I believe that we basically have no leaders now. We are all orphans. I believe we have got to use our minds as we've never used it before; crack open books; do research and DEFINITELY not depend on anyone alive today to run our lives or to lead us anywhere. There is no time to sleep.
A wise man learns from everyone. So does a wise woman. I say learn, but keep vigil.
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